


Take Me to Church

by tsdynghtgrf



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Angst, Bob Dylan - Freeform, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, F/M, Fluff, Lawrence - Freeform, M/M, Professor!Cas, Professor!Dean, TW: Violence, abusive!John, alcoholic!john, dick roman - Freeform, fluffy fluff, hometowns gone bad, marriedguy!sam, notdead!jess, oh wait that's definitely canon, oh wait thats basically canon, some porn?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-22
Updated: 2015-01-09
Packaged: 2018-02-14 05:58:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2180556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsdynghtgrf/pseuds/tsdynghtgrf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean had always worried that his father would find the surefire way to royally fuck up his sons' lives, but there are more than a few skeletons in Dean's closet raving for the opportunity to help drag him down. He thought he had shut down the worst of his past for good, and he never even fathomed having to explain any of it to sweet, innocent Cas. The ensuing spiral managed to be worse than Dean's worst nightmares.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Drenched to the Bone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title "Take Me to Church" is from the song title by Hozier of the same name.
> 
> Drenched to the Bone is taken from Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are a-Changin"

Dean had a shovel-full of pie in his mouth when the phone rang.

At first he was content to let the intruder get his voicemail - pie time was sacred time - but Cas leaned across the table and dug it out of his pocket, careful not to impede Dean’s fork access for more time than was necessary. Setting down his own fork, which was shoveling a slightly less artery-attacking meal of greens, he checked the Caller ID, saw it was Sam, and flipped it open to answer.

“This is Cas, Dean is indisposed, crammed-full of Montana’s finest home baked -” Sam evidently cut him off, and the casual smile fell from Cas' lips. Dean paused his aggressive fork acrobatics and lowered the utensil to the table. Cas didn’t explain his sudden drained color, but his brows pinched together and his head tilted. Dean stifled a shudder; it wasn’t the _confused_ head tilt, it was the _understanding pity_ head tilt. And that was never good. Cas extended the phone to Dean.

“What’s up, Sammy?”

“Uh, Dean,” Sam said, sounding not only unsure but angry, “We have a situation here. Dad’s... off the wagon.”

“Well that’s not exactly new, man,” Dean said, but Sam cut him off again.

“He got arrested, Dean,” Sam sounded more angry than unsure, now, “he got a DUI... and uh, there was an accident. The other driver didn’t make it.”

Dean realized that Cas was watching him intently, nerves wound and prepared for the eruption that Dean himself could feel forcing its way up his throat like furious vomit. 

“And you have school in a week,” Dean heard himself saying. As if they were talking about whose turn it was to take out the trash. 

“I’d stay, but I have an early meeting with my advisor, and it’s about my internship this year, or else I would-”

  
“Sammy, stop,” Dean sighed and ran a hand across the back of his neck. Cas was stock-still in front of him, carved of immovable marble, and somehow his muscles still seemed to writhe under his skin in anticipation. 

“I’ll figure something out,” he said. 

He wanted to say “Tell him to go fuck himself” and he wanted to say “He can go fuck himself in rehab - which I’m not paying for.” But saying it all to Sam wouldn’t do any good. Sam probably wanted to say those things as much - if not more - than Dean did. 

Cas gingerly reached across the table and put a hand on Dean’s, and he was surprised to see that he was shaking. He was burning with rage, but also with tremendous fear, though Cas couldn’t really know that. His father wasn’t the only reason he left Lawrence. 

“When’s your meeting?”

“Sunday.”

“We’ll be there Friday; gives you some time to get the hell outta Dodge.”

Sam sounded tired, but thankful. “This blows man.”

“See you in a few days, Sammy.”

***

“Excuse me, where the actual hell is Snyder?” 

Cas turned, a bit taken off guard that someone was talking to him at all. He expected, from the blatant cursing, an undergrad, but when he squinted up past the glare of the early fall sun, he saw a dark tan and a strong jaw that belonged to a man wielding a briefcase instead of a crumbling backpack. He wore relatively casual jeans, but had a deep maroon Oxford rolled to his elbows, and Cas smiled up at him from where he was seated on a bench in the quad. 

“My two year old niece could draw a better map than this piece of shit,” he continued, flapping the campus map absently. “Sorry,” he finished, realizing that he was talking to an actual human being, “I’m Dean.”

Cas laughed, a soft one, but it felt natural all the same. “Hello Dean.” He took the map and began to fold it strategically along a few edges. “So you’re the new guy, I presume,” Cas said.

“You would presume correctly,” Dean said, “just don’t go telling anyone I can’t find my way around a circle. I have a rep to start building here.”

Cas had to glance up at him to see the laughter in his eyes and understand that Dean was joking. His voice had been solid and demanding, but his expression suggested that he might have just given someone a fabulous wedgie. 

“I wouldn’t dare,” Cas responded with a grin. He handed the map back and directed Dean to a small blob that was intended to represent Snyder. “You have to ignore the bullshit around the edge of the campus, you won’t need to know any of it anyway if you’re teaching English.”

Dean pulled a mock-offended expression, “Just how small is this campus that you know what I’m teaching?”

Cas shook his head, still unable to wipe the grin from his face, “Students talk, Dean.”

This time, Dean raised an eyebrow, and leaned a bit closer, “What do they say about you?” 

Cas couldn’t stop the flush working its way up his neck. 

Before he could answer, Dean laughed, a full-body laugh that Cas would later come to love. “Relax, man,” he put a hand on Cas’ shoulder. “You busy later?”

***

Dean slammed both fists on the table, the phone clutched in one of them. Cas jolted, but didn’t move to either back away or close the gap. Dean’s eyes were on the table in front of him, pie forgotten, Cas probably forgotten as well. After just a moment, Dean seemed to remember Cas, however, and his gaze softened and met blue eyes. The first time he saw those eyes, they were bewildered and confused. It had only taken Dean a few words to have Cas smiling, even laughing. 

He had been hesitant to approach Cas at first that day on the quad; he looked serious, with his almost too-tight slacks, lost in thought, tense even. But he also had shockingly disheveled hair and, though they were partially hidden by studious lashes, blue eyes that sparked like flint off of steel. Dean couldn’t resist, he wanted to break that stoicism; and he had succeeded.  

That day in the quad was two years ago, and mostly their lives had been wrapped together ever since. Dean was mortified by commitment, but he had slowly grown mortified by the thought of losing Cas. Dean was brash and loud and dedicated to the church of rock and roll, but Cas eased him out of his own carefully sculpted mind-palace and allowed him to be vulnerable, to crack, to be afraid - because Dean trusted Cas to keep the pieces together if he started to fall apart. 

He very much felt like he was falling apart. His father had the spectacular ability to pull at the seams of Dean’s life subtly, until suddenly he was very nearly completely unraveled without any hope of pulling himself back together. Cas had known how to fix him, every time. When Dean was applying for tenure and losing his goddamn mind, Cas eased his worries with pie and surprise tickets to Guns N’ Roses and endless making out. When a drunk asshole tried to start a fight with “some faggot smart guy” and Dean got arrested, Cas had bailed him out and licked his wounds (which were mostly only acquired when dealing rather than receiving). 

Cas insists that Dean has been more than swaggering arm candy as well (although _Dean_ insists that he is, in fact, delicious arm candy in addition to all of the nice things Cas says about him). Cas had slowly lowered his shoulders from around his ears, at first because of Dean’s fabulous back massages, later because of Dean’s smile, and now his shoulders seemed to have permanently settled at a human altitude. Whenever Cas’ brother Gabriel visited, Dean managed to always out-charm and out-wit the unwelcome innuendo and inappropriate banter of the insufferable moron. Cas’ shoulders would briefly pull back up dangerously close to his old tension, but Dean always managed to step in just before they reached his reddening ears. Cas was even occasionally able to laugh in Gabriel’s presence, which is more than he can say for the years they spent in the same household. 

They had spent two years in alternating bliss and blissful misery. Whatever issues they had, they had somehow bulldozed and kept their sights on the only real thing that mattered. They liked their life, and everything they faced had been an inconvenience, a temporary clusterfuck that they always managed to unfuck.

Looking at Cas across a table of forgotten pie and salad, calmly waiting for Dean to speak or move or explode, blue steel eyes filled with concern and love, Dean realized there was no clusterfuck that could truly dick up what they had. Except for maybe his father and his hometown. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't usually post the random shit I write, so feedback is totally welcome! Anybody even care where this is going? Anybody actually like it? Bueller? 
> 
> *drowns in self-consciousness*


	2. The Sea Was Red and the Sky Was Grey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some things come naturally to Dean, like air guitar, and being a protective big brother, and cracking jokes, and dodging punches. 
> 
> Sammy cameo, perfect Cas, and a dash of Shakespeare because I'm into that Hey Nonny No.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: some violence in this chapter y'all.
> 
> Chapter title is from "Going to California" by Led Zeppelin.   
> The entire lyric is "The sea was red and the sky was grey, I wondered how tomorrow could ever follow today"

“Cas, I -” Dean stopped, swallowed. “I can’t ask you to do this with me.”

Dean searched his eyes for some kind of rejected response, but Cas only wrinkled his brow. “Dean, don't be ridiculous. Whatever you need, of course I will be with you.”

Cas could see Dean struggling, wheels turning in his head, his fight or flight reflexes banging around like siblings wrestling and arguing about who dad loves more. Finally, he succumbed like he always did, so pliant with Cas, and dropped his head into his hands. Cas took his unexpected subdued state as an opportunity to finally reach out and run a hand through Dean’s hair. After a few moments of letting Cas work at his worries with his fingertips, Dean lifted his head and looked at him.  

“I don’t know how long it will take,” Dean said, “it could be a few days, it could be months, it could be forever. He had so many chances, Cas, it's like he can’t be left alone, dude doesn’t know how to exist in society anymore.” Somewhere, rumbling around in his brain, he could feel a dark thought trying to make its way to the surface - _it could be less than a few days if he offs himself, or if I strangle him._ He didn’t let himself weigh which of the two would be more likely. In fact, he had no idea what he was going to do when he got to Lawrence. He had never intended to go back, much less for any extended period of time, and certainly not to perform any degree of care for his father. He’d have to enlist help, and he hated asking for help. He hated it almost as much as he hated the Bee Gees. Dean had to get him to rehab, and to a fucking psychiatrist, but he didn’t have the money for it and John probably wouldn’t go anyway. He was straight fucked as far as he could tell.

“Dean.” Cas rested a thumb on Dean’s cheekbone and hooked his fingers into his hair again, pulling him out of his thoughts. 

Cas even managed a smile, and when he did, something settled heavily across Dean’s shoulders -- a feeling he hadn’t felt since Sam was a kid and he’d had to leave him at home with their dad so he could go to work, since he had left town as soon as Sam went to Stanford, since he’d left Bobby to deal with _Dean’s_ family mess. The root of it grew steadily, twining into his muscles, filling his bones with something akin to cement -- guilt. He couldn’t let Cas fall into Dean’s pit of desperation and daddy issues. It wouldn’t be fair. It would ruin Cas, and that would be all on Dean.

“Dean,” Cas said again, “we have time. The semester is almost over and we have a few months to deal with this, to work towards some kind of resolve.” 

“I can’t finish the semester,” Dean said, though he didn’t care as much about sitting through proctoring finals as much as he cared about having to leave Cas behind for any period of time. “I have to go now -- Sam has to get to his internship -- Goddammit, what am I going to say to the university? I have to call Bobby and start mopping this shit up before it gets out of hand and something worse happens because fuck knows that’s not a far-fetched -”

“Dean.”

Dean mets his gaze, sighed, and leaned gently into Cas’ outstretched hand. 

“They’ll find a sub for your last few classes, hell, I’ll proctor your finals if I have to, and I’ll bring everything to you as soon as I’m done.” Cas lowered his hand, and Dean was sorry for its absence. “But I’m with you.”

*** 

“But, like, Caliban is grimy and weird and he should be thankful that Prospero even let him live - he tried to freaking rape Miranda!” 

The student ranting about Shakespeare hadn’t said more than five words all year, and now he was on a rampage. Dean watched in rapt amazement and said nothing, fearful of scaring him back into his hibernating state of daydreaming that only produced poorly punctuated essays. 

A girl spoke up, the one always asking about her participation grade, “But he was there before Prospero even showed up, and Prospero just took over like because he found something he deserved to own it - even though someone was already there! It’s imperialism! Caliban was screwed over! Not that he should rape people because of it, but still.” 

The class was seated in a circle - his Freshmen classes were always in need of the extra forced encouragement to talk - and for once they were all mostly awake and even _leaning in_ to the heated conversation.

“Was he?” Dean asked seriously. “What about the spirits?”

And the class was off again without any further guidance from Dean for the rest of their time. It was his last class before he had to drive 18 hours from his warm home with Cas in Montana to the asshole of his existence. 18 hours, mapquest had informed Dean that morning, is precisely how long it takes one to drive from Montana to the front gates of Hell. He hasn’t made the drive but once in the past five years and had always flown to see Sam at Stanford. Bobby had visited once when a storm blew out his power for a week and he had nothing better to do, but mostly they just spoke on the phone and kept to the pre-approved topics: baseball, cars, Bobby’s love life, Cas, and Sam. That had been enough for them to stay in touch.

The students were starting to pack up and Dean explained as much as he could the terms of the final. 

“Don’t dick it up completely and you’ll be fine,” he concluded. The students made a collective groan and he grinned. “Speaking of finals, today is our last class. I’ve gotta run outta town, so Friday you can spend your free hour pretending to study instead. Dr. Novak will be proctoring your exam next Tuesday at noon.” His freshmen students didn’t necessarily know about Dean and Cas’ relationship status, but they certainly weren’t as unperceptive as he had originally hoped - one girl wiggled her eyebrows at the mention of his name and another made a rude gesture that Dean pretended to not see and had to suppress a laugh. 

“Dude, you promised if we made it through the year, you would tell us why Led Zeppelin is the greatest band to ever exist.” It was the quiet kid again.

“That was the first day of class, how the hell did you even remember that,” Dean said. “Besides, I was like 15% joking. Raincheck?”

The students packed up and Dean actually felt a little sorry to see them go. He wasn’t sure how long it was going to take to clean up the mess back home, and he’d only see a fraction of them in English classes after this (the obligatory Read Your Brains Out 101) anyway. He had expected to have more time, infinite time really, with his students and the friends he had made, and now he had what felt like none left at all. Lawrence was sucking him back in and his biggest fear at the moment was not being spit back out. The stupid, small college campus had wormed its way into his heart somehow, and Cas probably had more influence over that than anything else, but he couldn’t help but kick himself for letting anything settle too comfortably in his life. He should have known better. 

***

Dean was blaring “Dy’er Mak’er” in the parking lot waiting for Sam to get out of school. It was sunny and warm, and he had the windows rolled down and his socked feet kicked up on the dash (shoeless, so as to not muck up his Baby’s sweet face). Eyes shut tight, concentrating on his righteous air guitar, a cigarette dangling from lips that were mouthing the words, and a fury of sheer awesome blazing in his heart, Dean didn’t hear Sam approaching and wouldn’t have much cared if he did.

“Dude, you gotta quit smoking,” Sam said as he slid in the passenger side and turned the music down as much as he could before Dean slapped his hand away.

“And you gotta get your head outta your ass,” Dean said casually, “but that’s none-a my business.” Regardless, he tossed the cigarette and put the Impala into gear. 

Sam punched Dean’s shoulder and tossed his backpack into the back seat.

“So how was school, honey, did you make any friends?”

“I already have friends,” Sam said.

“You already have _friend_.” 

“Whatever, man, that’s all I need, I’m leaving soon anyway.” He crossed his arms and there was a slight whine in his voice. Ever the petulant child. 

“When do you hear back from Stanford?”

“Technically, I should have heard back a week ago,” Sam said. Dean cringed at the worry that edged into Sam’s voice despite his attempt at nonchalance. He had to hand it to him, Sam had picked up on Dean’s ability to stifle emotion and emulated it with professional grace. It both impressed and bothered Dean; one of the many things he was afraid he had done wrong by Sam was make him too much of a loner, toughened him up more than was necessary. 

“I’m sure you will soon, buddy,” was all could think to say.

Sam just shrugged and looked out the window. 

When they pulled into the drive, Dean cut the engine and stopped Sam from getting out. “Sammy, I gotta go to work in an hour,” he said. It was an apology more than a mildly interesting bit of information. “I’ll try to clean and close up fast, but it’s the weekend, and I dunno how long it will take.”

Dean hadn’t wanted to work tonight, but bartenders on weekends made good tips and they had called in for the extra help when Jo called out for “personal reasons.” If he knew Jo at all, and he liked to think he did, that meant she was breaking into the VIP section of some concert and feeling up the drummer. He wished her well on that. 

Dean had also promised Sam a night out soon, away from home, and had planned for that being tonight. He had a bit of extra cash and was willing to do just about anything Sam felt like doing - except museums. He’d be shot in the face before he’d willingly go to a museum. Hell, he’d listen to the Bee Gees before willingly going to a museum. More than likely Sam would shrug and suggest a movie, but Dean knew he was dying for some excuse to spend time anywhere but home, especially with Stanford keeping him on the ropes. 

Sam just shrugged again and Dean wanted to punch him for it. “I know you gotta work,” he said. “I’ll just read in my room and go to bed.”

“Good,” Dean said, and he meant it. If Sam could make himself scarce, John may even forget he was home. “If you need anything, you call me immediately.”

“I know the drill, Dean,” Sam said in the petulant child tone. But Dean appreciated that he felt like an overbearing mother telling his child for the eightieth time not to take candy from a stranger or poop on the neighbor’s lawn. The exasperated _I knnnooooww, jeeeez_ was exactly the response he was hoping for because it meant he really did know it.

“Good,” he repeated. “And if for some godforsaken reason you can’t reach me?”

“Call Bobby,” he recited, with that _tone._ Dean was too fucking proud of that tone and had to consciously keep himself from smiling. 

“Okay, go,” he said, handing Sam his backpack, “I gotta unload.”

Sam disappeared inside and Dean sat on the lip of the open trunk of the car. He had some tools that he borrowed from Bobby to fix some random shit up in the Impala, but he had no intention of unloading them any time soon. He lit another cigarette instead. Quitting was really the least of his concerns right now, and they took the edge down about three thousand notches. Plus, it gave him something to do whenever he stormed out of the house or needed a general break from his father’s rambling. Sam could read to relax, Dean could smoke. 

He finished the cigarette, put it out with his boot, and slammed the trunk shut. He saw his father standing in the doorway waiting patiently for him and made his way toward the house. 

“Bobby doin’ alright,” John asked. Dean noted that a drink was not stapled to his hand at the moment, but his shoulders sagged just enough that he looked tired and dragged about all the same.

“Yea, he’s good. Been slow this week, but it’s summer and nice out and all that,” he said. 

Dean tried to walk past him into the house, but John put a hand on his chest to stop him. “Sam said you were working tonight,” he said. He wasn’t asking, so Dean didn’t reply. “You planning on fixing that garage door any time soon?” 

“I can fix it tomorrow,” Dean said. He tried to keep his voice even. John had broken the garage door by backing the car into it two nights prior in an attempt to retrieve more alcohol. “You never leave anyway, and if you do need to go somewhere tonight, you can call a cab.” _You certainly shouldn’t fucking drive yourself._

He pushed past him into the kitchen and opened the fridge to make himself some food since he was about to turn around and leave again. John leaned in the doorway between the kitchen and living room and plucked his drink from the counter. He seemed to always be leaning on things. He still seemed to have his basic motor functions that afternoon, but that wasn’t necessarily a good indicator of sobriety. It was, however, a good sign in comparison to other signs that seemed relatively absent for the moment. It meant he had decided to start drinking later in the day rather than earlier, and that was better news for Sam. Less to clean up. “Sam said he had lots of reading to do tonight,” John said, leaning.

“Sam’s been saying a lot today, apparently,” Dean replied, without much commitment. 

To Dean’s surprise, John laughed. “So he has.” Dean finished the loaded up sandwich he was making and sat at the table like a proper gentleman. If he had tried to take it to the living room, his father would have called him a heathen and he’d end up back in the kitchen anyway. John sat down across from him, eyes glassy, but otherwise looking very serious. “Dean,” he said, leaning forward. Leaning. “When are you gonna fix that garage door?” 

Dean had been about to take a bite, but sighed and put it down. “Dad you already asked me that,” he said. “I have to work tonight so I’ll fix it tomorrow before I go to Bobby’s.”

John’s face lit up, “How’s Bobby doin’ these days?”

Dean sighed again. He spotted an envelope sticking out of John’s shirt pocket, and motioned to it with his breaded masterpiece before taking a bite and asking mid-chew, “Wassat?”

John looked down confused, as if he hadn’t put it there himself, and pulled it out. He read the address line and quickly stood up, knocking over the chair he had been sitting in. Dean watched him suspiciously. “It’s nothing,” John said, suddenly attempting to be a figure of authority. “Don’t worry about it, it’s none of your business.”

Dean shrugged and went back to his sandwich, but watched John from the corner of his eye as he bent slowly and carefully to put his chair upright again. The envelope was tucked into his back pocket and while he was bent over, Dean carefully edged it out. 

It was addressed to Sam. It was from Stanford, and it had been opened. John hadn’t noticed Dean had taken it and now was not the time to start anything dramatic. And dramatic it would be if Dean gave Sam the letter, especially right before Dean had to leave. He finished his sandwich, John sitting across from him asking questions about Bobby and Sam and “that queer fella you used to hang out with” (which Dean didn’t respond to, that being a dramatic conversation in and of itself). He texted Sam when he left so he wouldn’t have to draw John’s attention back to his other son, and went to work.

It was a slower night than he expected and the tips wouldn’t even have been worth it if it weren’t for the bachelorette party that came through and offered him a few hundred dollars to only serve them while shirtless. He was happy to oblige, considering he had nothing to lose and everything to show off. They asked for several lap dances and he had to remind them time and again that it was against the boss’s rules. He helped Ellen clean up and left the bar in high spirits. He hadn’t heard from Sam except once after Dean had sent him a selfie with the bachelorette partiers asking which one Sam thought he should bring home. Sam had asked if Dean was sure he hadn’t already fucked them all before. He had astutely and intelligently replied that Sam was just a big jealous baby.

When he got home, John was waiting for him on the front step. Sitting instead of leaning -- another sign, one less than promising.

Dean had put two and two together without having to ask -- John knew he’d taken the envelope. Dean hadn’t even had to read the letter for himself to know why John was keeping it from Sam. John narrowed his eyes at him as he approached the house, but Dean was already making his way past him towards Sam’s bedroom. It took John a delayed second to comprehend the movement, but Dean could hear him stumbling after him only a second after he passed through the kitchen with determination. 

"Dean," John called after him, "you give that back right now, goddammit!"

Dean knocked on Sam’s door, knowing it would be locked. “Sammy, let me in.” The door opened a few seconds later, and Dean closed it behind him, locking it again. Sam had still been awake even though it was nearly 3 in the morning, a book open on his desk and a few papers scattered around it. The little fucker could do some serious academic damage and Dean had never understood that kind of patience, not until he started his undergrad in an environment completely opposite to the one he grew up in.

“Boys, let me in there,” John yelled. He was yelling more as though he thought the door was made of concrete than he was yelling because he was angry.

“Sammy, read it,” Dean said, holding out the opened, badly wrinkled envelope. It had a small stain on one corner where John had probably spilled his drink. 

Sam’s eyes were wide as he read the front of the envelope. He held it delicately, seemingly unable to move. John banged loudly on the door and yelled again for them to let him in, though this time he _did_ sound angry. Sam jumped at the noise, and it snapped him into action. He unfolded the letter inside and read it completely, twice, before looking up at Dean with the biggest shit-eating grin Dean had ever seen on the kid. 

“Dean, I got in.”

“Oh really, I thought you were crying because they realized you were actually an idiot.”

“Fuck you, I’m not crying!” Sam read the letter again, and then was unable to control himself. He jumped up and hugged Dean, who very willingly hugged his brother back. The Winchester household hadn’t seen many hugs, and Dean was going to fucking relish this one as if it would be his last. Sam had also gotten fucking tall, Dean realized in their moment of abnormal closeness. He had known he was taller than Dean, but the kid must’ve swallowed a basketball goal or something.

The banging on the door came again, this time louder and heavier, and Dean snapped from his momentary bliss. 

He opened the door during a pause in the banging, and found John glaring at him, a fist raised prepared to continue his barrage. 

“I said ‘Let me in,’” John growled. Dean stepped into John’s space in the hallway, and instinctively started to pull the door shut behind him. John reached out a hand and edged Dean back into the room. “When I say let me in, you let me in.” 

“Dad, why didn’t you tell me I got into Stanford,” Sam asked carefully. 

John’s expression flickered between anger and guilt and worry, settling finally on anger. “I’ll choose what’s best for my family,” he said. He didn’t say that he didn’t _want_ Sam to leave, and he would never say it, just that he _couldn't_. But Dean could see it in his face. “Sam staying is what’s best, we’re not a family unless we’re all together.” 

Dean didn’t acknowledge that two weeks before, John had told Dean he could join the army and deploy to some high-kill war zone for all he cared. Dean couldn’t really blame him, Sam was the trophy child, even he could see that that was blatantly clear. More than anything Dean ever wanted for himself or anyone else, he wanted Sam to be able to get the fuck out and be brilliant doing whatever it was he wanted to do. He could certainly pull it off, and Dean had been working his ass off trying to get enough money for him to go. 

“Sam can do whatever the hell he wants,” Dean said. “He hasn’t worked so hard to just do nothing with his life. He’s a goddamn genius, dad, you can’t make him stay.”

“Don’t talk to me like that,” John said absently. “I don’t deny the boy is smart, but this isn’t a discussion. It’s been decided, he’s staying.” 

Dean could see Sam slump in his periphery. “He’s going if he wants to.” He turned to Sam as if to ask Sam to speak up and confirm Dean’s unasked question.

“I want to go, dad,” Sam said after a second’s hesitation.

John’s expression went dark. “You think you can tell me what to do,” he yelled. 

John took a step towards Sam, but Dean stepped in his way. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

John had never been one to take orders politely, and John had certainly never been one to take orders from his son. Especially not his _lesser_ son. Sam was a genius, he knew this to be true, but he still needed to knock some goddamn sense into the kid if he thought he was going anywhere. John was also under the impression, no matter how many times he was proven wrong, that he was stronger than Dean. Maybe before he started drinking regularly, he could have easily had Dean in a headlock and blacked out before Dean could get a swing in, but years of degeneration on his reflexes and years of Dean having practice usually meant things stopped before they really got started. John, refusing to start taking orders _now_ , after all this time, lifted a fist and made a move towards Sam again, who backed away. 

The blow didn’t land because Dean had strong-armed him in the chest and shoved him back into the hallway. John stumbled backwards against the wall across from the door, and Dean quickly pulled Sam’s door shut, saying “Lock it, now” as he did. He heard the click just as he was turning back to John. He thought he would have to lift him off the floor and haul him to bed, if anything, the booze having worn him out. Instead, he was hit hard on the jaw, surprisingly square on the curve of the bone, and his vision flickered momentarily and he staggered sideways. He caught himself, but John’s fury must have been burning through his usual alcoholic stupor because he was on Dean again before he had recovered and brought another fist down, this time on his temple. 

He crumpled to his knees, not having been blindsided by his father in a while and shook his head. He managed to scramble backwards just as John attempted to kick him in what would have been the groin. _Cheap shot, Dad_. He pulled himself up and backtracked to the living room. There was a lot of padding in the living room. There were a lot of knives in the kitchen. Better to stick to the padding, where John could pass out when his energy drained. John emerged from the hallway looking scared and pleaded with Dean. “Dean, I didn’t mean to,” he said. “Sam can’t go, he just can’t, don’t you see that?” The odds of John trying to pull a fast one rather than being sincere was 50/50, but Dean wouldn't take the bait.

“No, dad,” Dean said, “I don’t. Sam is going. And you are going to let him and be proud like fathers are expected to be.” 

John’s sadness and fear evaporated and he lunged at Dean again, and this time Dean was more prepared. He took a step back, and his swing would have missed, but the back of his knee got caught on the ottoman and John clipped him in the lip, knuckles scraping against Dean's teeth. “ _He_ will do what I _tell him_ ,” John yelled, taking advantage of Dean’s compromised position to punch him in the stomach. Dean reeled and fell, knocking the back of his head on the coffee table. Sparks flew around Dean’s head, nerves setting on fire, and his hands felt slow as he raised them to cover his face as another blow landed, digging into his ribs. John was rumbling incoherently, and Dean only caught snatches of his threats.

“DAD STOP,” Dean managed to yell through his arm fortress. For a moment, the sudden disappearance of fists in his side was terrifying, as if John were teasing him, letting him feel relieved for a few seconds before resuming. But Dean felt his father’s weight lift off of him, and heard him stomping away. 

Dean dropped his arms. One leg was still hooked up over the ottoman, the other felt bruised and flattened where John had been using his knee to hold him down. His head was pounding. He hadn’t let John get the jump on him like that in months, he should have known considering the magnitude of Sam's news, although he was glad he had managed to shove Sam away back into his room first. Sam wasn’t helpless by any means, but Dean had spent his entire childhood making sure John’s rage never left a mark on him and he wasn’t about to let it _start_ happening just because the kid was slightly less of a kid.

Dean’s pounding head was, at that point, also sizzling and he had the vague notion of a thought towards a concussion, but he was interrupted by the sound of his father’s footsteps returning and he jolted up. John had made another drink and was ambling back into the living room. He only glanced at Dean, sat down in his armchair, and turned on the TV without saying a word. 

***

The Impala was loaded and Dean bemoaned the 18 hour drive, loudly, one last time. 

“Please,” Cas scoffed, “you’ll blast your godforsaken, frankly blasphemous music with the windows down and it will be perfectly pleasant.”

“Blasphemous?” Dean cocked an eyebrow, “I’m pretty sure we’ve done more than a few things that are considered blasphemous, and I never once heard you complain unless you were asking for more.” Cas laughed and Dean leaned back against the driver’s side door, pulling Cas by the belt loops against him. Dean slid his hands under the hem of Cas’ shirt and dug his thumbs into the creases at his hips that he knew were there without having to search for them. He stared intently into the blue eyes he had first seen under autumn sunlight and wanted them to swallow him whole so he never had to leave, so he would always be buried somewhere inside Cas and have zero obligations to the rest of the world. 

“What are you staring at,” Cas asked, his bottom lip poking out just slightly. Dean nipped at it.

“I don’t want anything at all but you, babe,” he said, deciding the truth was more important than a one-liner at the moment. He buried his face in Cas’ collarbone and wrapped his arms deeper into Cas’ shirt, up his back, clinging, “Don’t make me go.”

Dean was being childish, but Cas knew it was because what he was about to face was genuinely difficult for Dean. Dean had put a lot of his past in a box and dug a hole so deep in the back of his mind for it that he had only brought it up to Cas twice. Once, when he was blackout drunk after his friend Benny from college died, he had mentioned off-hand that his father beat him as an addendum to his detailed explanation of Benny’s loyalty. The second time was when Dean, a few days later, realized he had drunkenly told Cas this piece of information, and had asked why Cas never mentioned it. “I wasn’t going to talk about something you clearly didn’t want to talk about,” Cas had said seriously. Dean had then, hesitantly, filled in more pieces of the story of his childhood. “It was brave of you to protect Sam,” Cas had said when Dean had finished his stuttering narrative. Dean fell in love every time Cas opened his goddamn mouth, but that had nearly pushed him past his sanity. He would have been happy if Cas had said nothing at all as long as he didn’t try to express any _pity_ for Dean. 

Cas stroked the back of Dean’s neck, “I’ll be there at the end of next week. Then, you’ll have papers to grade and will want to send me right back for bringing such misery to you.”

“I could never be miserable with you even if you made me grade one hundred papers every day for the rest of my life,” Dean said, muffled in Cas’ shirt. “I could never be miserable with you even if you made me listen to the Bee Gees while visiting museuems every day for the rest of my life.”

Cas chuckled, the low and deep rumble of a chuckle Dean felt in his cheeks as he pressed against Cas’ chest. Tilting his chin up, Cas forced Dean to meet his gaze. “Quit stalling,” he said, “you’re making this harder, and you have a long way to go.”

“Damn you and your insatiable urge to always be right,” Dean said. He stood himself upright, but didn’t completely unwind his arms from around Cas. If this was going to be the last time he would hold him for a while, he wasn’t going to let go a second sooner than he had to. 

“It’s a curse, but mostly a gift,” Cas said. The lilting smile dropped from his lips when Dean dropped his head, as if in shame, for the second time in 48 hours. “We will be okay,” he said, “I’ve got you.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for your comments and kudos for the last chapter! This one was much longer, and I don't know how consistent length will be from here on out, but any suggestions are welcome.
> 
> And I do welcome criticism; it's the only way to get better at the thing, yes? 
> 
> <3


	3. In the Springtime of My Lovin'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> LOL basically just a fluffy interlude and Cas stuff. Whoops.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from "[The Rain Song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4v-_p5dU34)" by Led Zeppelin.

The thing about Dean, Cas found out, was that when he loved, he loved hard. Not just Sam, not just Benny and Bobby, not just Cas. If Dean loved, he loved fiercely - pie, rock and roll, the Impala, his students (though he may not admit that one), hiking, Star Wars, Vonnegut, making up goofy songs while he noodled on the guitar. These things Dean could love because Cas knew he hadn’t been given much to call his own when he was younger. Cas let him have it all, gave him as much as he could of what he loved, and he felt only slightly guilty that he was spoiling the ever-loving shit out of him.

About a week before Sam called with the news of their father, Dean was splayed on the couch, head in Cas’ lap, strumming idly on guitar while Cas read through the chapter on theoretical physics that he was teaching the next day. Dean squirmed every now and then, and Cas smiled every time -- he could tell Dean was trying to be patient and not hurry Cas along. He finished the chapter, but didn’t shift to let Dean know he was done so he could watch him for just a little longer. His fingers slid across the frets deftly, with no real end goal in mind, just edging out a continuous string of something soothing. Cas couldn’t believe how beautiful Dean was, the tendons in his fingers straining across the strings, the gentle hum in his chest, the freckles that were splashed across his nose like sunlight flickering through autumn leaves.

Cas loved fiercely as well. Loved Dean with an urgency that he had never been allowed to feel for anything else in his life. His father had disappeared when Cas was barely 10, and honestly he had been thankful for that after he got over the initial shock of being abandoned. His siblings had been difficult enough to deal with without the additional presence of an uninterested, perpetually disappointing father. His sister Anna still kept in touch, but she was married with children on the other side of the country; she had always been as concerned with ditching the family as much as he had. It was Gabriel who still gave him trouble. The rest kept to their own, and he was thankful for that, too. 

***

The first time (while Cas was with Dean) that Gabriel had decided to drop in for a visit, Cas flew into a frenzy of cleaning and muttering and cursing and could barely focus on his classes. Gabe didn’t necessarily care how clean the place _actually_ was, but he could use it against him when he returned home and told their mother how Cas was fairing with his “friend.” That’s what Dean was to Cas’ mother, his “friend” -- said with a wrinkled and upraised nose, eyebrows pinched together in a half-confused way that Dean would have said Cas mimicked if he didn’t think it would get him skinned alive. Cas and his brothers used to fight, as brothers do, but Cas had been pretty small, and Gabe was really the only one who ever took it easy on him. He wasn’t sure why, but he suspected that Gabriel simply enjoyed torturing him mentally instead, the physical always slightly beyond his sense of purpose. He was certain Gabe loved him, felt some sort of brotherly affection for him, but that didn’t stop him from using his psychological prowess on Cas whenever the opportunity presented itself.

“Cas, baby, the place looks fine,” Dean had said. “Take a break.”

Cas had turned on him, blue eyes ablaze, trying to _will_ Dean to understand the constant aggravating presence that was Gabriel before he had to experience it for himself.

“Castiel,” Dean had warned before Cas could respond, “You will have a nice dinner with me, dammit, and we will deal with your brother when he gets here.” 

Cas had almost wilted, seeing that the table was set and -- yes -- it did smell unbelievably, intoxicatingly delicious in the entire house now. He finished rearranging the last few books on the shelf and let his rage simmer to a dull throb somewhere in his gut. It was not Dean’s fault that Cas couldn’t face his family without getting worked up, and he reminded himself that there was no need to take it out on him when he was just trying to help. Anyone else, and they would have been collateral damage. Just that morning, he had snapped on his students for asking frankly stupid questions. Although, “snapping” for Dr. Castiel Novak simply meant that he intelligently reminded them that the resolve for their issues could be easily found in the syllabus, which he had given them _and_ explained on the first day of classes, and if they wouldn’t mind looking there before bringing their concerns back to him, as he was unwilling to repeat himself. They were still taken aback enough that he felt a twinge of guilt, but he didn’t apologize.

Dean was filling a glass with water at the sink, shoulders tense, clearly unsure about how exactly to handle Cas in his worked up state. Food was freshly spread across the table (simple meals were Dean’s bag, and hamburgers somehow became gourmet under his touch). Crossing the living room, onto the cool tile of the kitchen and to Dean who had his back to Cas, Cas slid his arms around his stomach and gently pressed his cheek between Dean’s shoulder blades. He hummed into his cotton shirt and breathed him in, the scent of Impala, leather, soap, and a bit like rain, though it had been relatively dry for the past few weeks. He planted a kiss on the back of his neck, then removed himself from the embrace to return to the living room and set a record on the turntable. It would hopefully indicate to Dean that Cas was _trying_ to loosen himself up.. 

He picked [Elliott Smith](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyjfDUwH3vc).

_Someone’s always comin’ around here, trailin’ some new kill._

Cas felt his knees unlock and his fingers uncurl from the fists he didn’t realize they had been in. He sighed and let his chin fall to his chest like he was taking a siesta standing up. He turned to return to the kitchen. Leaning against the kitchen counter, arms crossed but relaxed, was Dean -- his Dean, smiling. It made him ache, and he had the urge to skip dinner completely and just drag Dean upstairs to their bedroom. From one extreme to the other -- that was as accurate as Castiel could describe his state of being when family was concerned.

“I’m still convinced you only play this to try to brainwash me into liking your weirdo, hand-holding kumbaya music.”

Cas scoffed, “You don’t need to admit it, but I know you like it. I heard you singing it.”

“Please! When?”

“Literally yesterday, when you were doing something _manly_ in the shed.”

Dean closed the gap between them, but didn’t touch. Dean only gave him 90% and Cas refused to let the other 10% hang out to dry, so he pulled Dean in, rough, fingers hooking into the hem of Dean’s henley. 

“I think you’re making shit up, Dr. Novak,” Dean said, green eyes alight again with mischief.

“I think you’re refusing to accept the shit that is true, _Professor_ Winchester,” Cas said, smirking. It was only a slight dig, Dean had every intention of getting his PhD, but had wanted to teach first and find a groove. That was Dean’s term for it, “find a groove.” Until then, Cas used his advantage as the superior certified intelligence in the house.

“Or perhaps I’m just brainwashed,” Dean said, almost seriously, but his eyes always gave him away. 

Cas pressed his lips to Dean’s with perhaps more urgency than he meant to reveal, but Dean met Cas’ fervor with his own. Their tongues touched briefly, each trying to tease the other, both succeeding. Dean’s hands slid into Cas’ already messy hair when Cas pulled Dean flush against him, and when Cas pulled his lips away, Dean let out a soft whine. “You certainly don’t seem to be fighting it much, then,” he said. 

Dean groaned his disapproval. “You may have learned a thing or two about psychological warfare from your brother,” he said. “He must be a freaking genius to get you worked up like you get me worked up.”

Cas grinned, “I haven’t even gotten started.”

***

Dean’s mindless strumming and humming became something recognizable and Cas knew he had somehow slipped, gotten too lost in his own thoughts, settled too deep into the couch. He must have fallen out of his perfect reading posture, and Dean had taken notice. 

“ _I can make you satisfied in everything you do_ ,” Dean crooned, and Cas laughed lightly, brushing a hand through Dean’s hair “ _All your secret wishes could right now be coming true. Spend forever with my poison arms round you, no one’s gonna fool around with us._ ”

Dean finished, his eyes tilted backwards to look at Cas with a wickedly knowing smile. Cas’ heart still fucking fluttered when he gave him that look. 

“You’re one charming son of a bitch, Dean Winchester,” Cas said, noticing that his voice had involuntarily dropped to a low growl. 

“Watch how you talk about my mother,” Dean snapped, but his eyes were still ignited with that same mischief. It triggered in Cas the memory of the day they met, and so many others. Dean’s mouth liked to say one serious thing while his eyes suggested the complete opposite. Cas’ gaze was attached to that mouth now and he flushed like he was still a teenager. 

Dean twisted around, carefully laying the guitar on the ground as he did, and tugged Cas’ shirt to pull him into a kiss. 

“I think it’s time to take you to bed, Castiel” Dean said, green eyes dancing. Cas’ heart leap at the sound of his full name rolling over Dean’s tongue.

***

Cas allowed himself to remember that night on the couch -- although it was similar to many nights, it just seemed to stick with him -- as he lay in bed waiting for Dean to call and let him know that he had made it to Lawrence. He refused to worry, panic, or call (again) to make sure he was okay. Dean, physically, was perfectly fine, Cas knew that. But the closer Dean got to Lawrence, the tighter his voice became over the phone, the more carefully he controlled his tone, and Cas could practically feel Dean’s typically rampant expression turning to stone as he spoke. 

It was quiet; he hadn’t thought to put on music or the TV to distract himself. Instead, Cas had let himself feel lonely, like he wanted to exist completely, exquisitely raw in the empty bed that had never felt too big for a single person until now. He only had one class tomorrow and his increasingly overactive imagination kept insisting that the hour he was uninterruptedly busy would be when the proverbial shit would hit the proverbial fan. 

If he had it in him, Cas would get up to make himself a drink, but he was drained and waning in the early morning hours. He glanced at the clock: 4am. He would give Dean 20 more minutes and then he was going to accept that he was a worried housewife for the night and fucking call him. Dean could whip out all the one-liners he wanted, but Cas refused to be phased by it. 

He was worried, worried, worried - and he had every right to be, dammit. Castiel knew what it was like to be troubled by the past, he knew very well that you simply can’t _shake off_ the things that make you who you are. And Dean never seemed to shake off anything, anyway.

***

When Cas’ father was still keeping tabs on his children, he would ask them how school was, how they were treating the other siblings, but always on the phone. When he left, he had put a fair amount of distance between himself and his family.

“You being good for your mother?”

“Yes, sir,” Castiel always replied. He never considered taking the time to actually reflect on what his mother would say on the subject. 

“Good.” Then silence for a while, as they both tried to come up with something to say.

When Castiel was much younger, before his brothers had teased and beaten him until he crawled into a thick shell of observation and caustic cynicism, he babbled not infrequently about his latest drawings, the books he had been reading, the lovely day he was having spending time in his room constructing models of various buildings he admired. He still drew sometimes, finding a certain otherwise unobtainable peace in the space it cleared in his head. 

“Are you going to visit soon?” 

“I’m not sure, Castiel. I’m quite busy right now.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Maybe we will see for your birthday, okay?” 

Cas realized later, as he reflected on these phone calls -- which may as well have been recorded and put on loop -- that his father always sounded repentant when he made these half-promises, as if he’d already broken them. 

More silence would feel the spaces between the question Castiel never had the courage to ask and the time to say goodbye.

“I think it’s time to put on the next one, Castiel.”

“Yes, sir,” he replied. 

“I’ll talk to you soon, son,” his father said.

“Okay.”

And then the phone would be snatched from Cas’ hand by Gabriel who would have been leaning over his shoulder during the entire call anyway, waiting for his chance to ask his dad if he’d found some other woman to sleep with, what was his liquor of choice, and had he embezzled enough money to fly them all to Tahiti yet?

“Do you love me?” Even Castiel at ten years old knew this, if voiced, would sound both absurd and damning. The inevitable implication of asking would be to reveal that his father never _said_ “I love you” and the potential damage and added awkwardness was not something for which Cas wanted to be responsible. It was safer to not ask, and to try to convince himself that of course his father loved him. Besides, if he _did_ ask, his father would reflexively and defensively answer in the affirmative, and Castiel was certain that would be worse than not hearing it at all.

When he stopped calling, stopped visiting, stopped sending letters and birthday cards, Cas had been sure he was dead. Their mother assured them that he was not dead, just “busy.” He was young, but he wasn’t too young to know that wishing his father had _actually_ been dead, instead of just ignoring them, was not something he was supposed to be feeling.

Cas always felt foolish looking back on his relationship with his father; he should have been angry, or demanding, or perhaps aloof, like Gabriel. Instead, he had been meek and placated by his mother’s empty and tired attempts at comfort. He had vowed to never be meek about what he cared for again.

***

He looked at the clock. 4:23. He picked up the phone and dialed.

It only rang once, “Hey Cas, are you okay?”

“Of course I am,” Cas said, hearing the sleepiness in his own voice. “You didn’t call. Are you there yet?”

“Yea, I’m here,” Dean said. The cadence in his voice tipped from casual to pouty in three words, and Cas smiled to himself. At least Dean wasn’t angry or upset - or at least not _more_ angry and upset than he already had been. “I thought you would have been asleep by now.”

“I couldn’t,” Cas said. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“I’m alright,” Dean said. There was a comfortable silence, an easiness across the phone lines that Cas never felt when on the phone with his father. “You should get some sleep, babe.”

“I’m not the one who drove 18 straight hours,” Cas said. 

“But you _do_ have class in the morning. You know those kids can fucking smell fear, drowsiness, and unpreparedness from 50 miles away. They'll eat you alive if you don't show up guns blazing.”

More silence. Cas wanted to fall asleep like this, with the phone wedged between his face and the pillow, listening to Dean scold him. If Dean was busy scolding Cas for being overly sleepy, then he wasn’t pacing anxiously around the living room, drinking scotch and taking frequent breaks from his incessant laps around the coffee table to go outside and smoke. “How much did you smoke on the way down there?”

“None.” The reply was too immediate. 

“Dean.”

“A few,” he conceded, whining again, “but some guy at a gas station kept telling me about how he was saving the earth with his goddamn Prius and asking me for advice about his marriage - and I was like ‘Dude, I’m gay, I don’t know what to tell you about wives’ and he thought I was _kidding_ , Cas, and his weirdo teenage kid kept staring at me like he was cursing me or something.

“That’s a very nice story, honey,” Cas said in his best imitation of what he guessed a housewife would sound like if she were only half listening. 

“I’m sorry,” Dean huffed, still on the defensive. Dean only smoked once in a while now, and Cas giving him grief for it was more ceremony than lecture.

“I know it hasn’t been easy,” Cas said seriously. 

“Are you sure you’re up for coming down here? You don’t have to, I would understand completely. It’s going to be a shit storm as it is, and you aren’t obligated to have to put up with-”

“Dean.”

“Yea, Cas?”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too, Cas, but really, you don’t have to--”

“Dean.”

He heard a sigh, then, “Yea, Cas?”

“I’m coming.”

Another sigh, this time one of muffled relief. There were a few seconds of pause, and Cas could almost picture Dean running a hand over the back of his neck. “Okay, Cas.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by Jensen's cover of "Angeles" by Elliot Smith, which is what I linked to in the text, so go listen to it because holy fuck that man has a sweet, sweet voice. 
> 
> As always, comments/feedback are appreciated! I don't know why I went fluffy for no apparent reason, but there it is. And some of it is at least important later. =]


	4. Walk A While With Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lady, you got the love I need,  
> Maybe, more than enough.  
> Oh, darlin' darlin' darlin,  
> Walk a while with me.  
> Oh, you've got so much,  
> So much, so much. 
> 
> \- "Over the Hills and Far Away" by Led Zeppelin
> 
> Train rides are boring, and so is this chapter. Sorry.

A certain kind of pain appeared on Castiel’s face the first time Dean had told him about John. Not pity, far from it. Instead, pure pain, as if Dean had crushed his face into the car hood and called him a moronic disrespectful piece of shit. Dean still had the scar on his ribcage where he broke the headlight on impact.  
But it wasn’t pity that Dean saw on Cas’s face. It was a strange mixture of understanding, loathing, and agony -- which terrified Dean. Cas cared more for Dean in those few emotions than Dean had ever let himself feel in his entire life.  
  
He had never told anyone the things he eventually told Cas; the stories came separately, out of order, in times of weakness and strength alike, two or three complete stories in a sitting, in fragments across the span of a few months, finished and unfinished.  
  
Cas sometimes reciprocated with his own stories, and sometimes he took them in silence, offering his attention in small acknowledgements of a touched hand, an arm wrapped slightly tighter around his shoulders, a small murmured “hmm” as he sometimes did when he was studying or deep in thought. Always present. And as they went through this song and dance, the wounded expression on his face lessened. But Dean also noticed that while the pain receded, the loathing did as well. Cas understood that Dean’s recounting of the past was his way of purging his own loathing, of trying to move on. So Cas found himself trying to do the same -- for Dean.  
  
On the train ride to Kansas, however, Cas felt some of those sparks of loathing reemerging. He had never met the infamous John Winchester, but had now heard so many stories (likely told with the expectation that he and Cas would never actually have the misfortune to meet), that the prospect of coming face to face with the man swept through him, erasing all of the efforts to “let go” he had been helping Dean make, and thus had been letting go of himself.  
  
Hours on the train, and he was unable to sleep, read, grade papers, or even stare mindlessly out of the window. He saw a few remarkable sights and remembered thinking vaguely that he wished Dean was with him to share those moments with, however brief they were, but those thoughts only slowly translated into Cas wishing that neither of them were where they were right now. If Dean was on the train with Cas, they’d still be on their way to Dean’s wasteland of a past. From what Cas could tell, Sammy and Bobby were the only true positive people Dean ever had in his life in Kansas -- and even then, they were tinged with the shadows of John’s lingering presence.  
  
Cas went through this cycle several times. A beautiful sight, wanting to share it with Dean, remembering where he was and where he was going, how Dean must be feeling, anger, reminding himself that he needed to support Dean, distracted by a beautiful sight, and repeat.  
  
After several more hours, he forced himself to turn up the music on his iPod and plow through some of his students’ papers. After reading the first few, he found himself pleasantly surprised by the lack of sheer awful he found in them. Maybe he was actually capable of doing some good.  
  
Minutes dragged into hours. He checked his watch. John’s arraignment would be soon, and Dean had said he’d keep Cas updated. For some reason the court-appointed lawyer (as Dean wasn’t willing to pay for one and Sam wasn’t willing to do it himself, whether or not he was done with school wasn’t a factor) thought John should try to get the court to at least lessen his time with parole. Though no other parties save for John thought he deserved it.  
  
Cas wanted to call, just hear his voice and try to think of something - anything - that would be comforting to Dean, but he couldn’t find the right words no matter how many times he sifted through the possibilities. Cas tried as patiently as possible to make sure he arrived in Kansas with his shoulders still settled at a human altitude. He thought of calling Sam just to have someone to talk to, something to do, a familiar voice that he didn’t loathe, but he didn’t want to ruin Sam’s day with his mopey mood either. Sammy had enough on his plate with Jess, school, and a four year old.  
  
Cas thought he might actually lose his mind, and he was damn near ready to stab his coffee stirrer in his eyes when his phone rang. He sprang for it, knocking a few student papers into the aisle in the process.  
  
“Hey babe.”  
  
Cas melted at those words, but he couldn’t quite read Dean’s tone. “How did it go,” he ventured.  
  
“Court date is in a month and a half,” Dean sighed loudly, making a show of his misery though Cas knew the show was to lessen the actual misery. “I can’t be here that long, baby, I’m gonna kill myself.”  
  
Cas twitched. “I’ll be there in a few hours. We will be fine, Dean. It’s going to be hard, but we will be fine. Did you talk to him much?”  
  
“No, but he gave me a nice four-word lecture about not visiting him or posting bail.”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“His exact words were, if I remember correctly, ‘The hell you been?’ and then he ignored me for next twenty minutes. When it was over, he casually mentioned he was murderous for a drink. Poor choice of words, dude.” Dean sounded so very tired.  
  
“He’s a moron, yes. You’re a terribly kind person to have gone back for him at all,” Cas said as gently as possible, trying to sound supportive of Dean’s choices rather than ragingly disapproving of John’s choices and John in general.  
  
“I hope so. You enjoying your ride?”  
  
“Only in 30 second bursts. It’s actually quite beautiful.” Dean waited patiently, and Cas could easily picture the cocked eyebrow, and he caved. “I’m bored as shit, Dean.”  
  
“Papers already graded?” Cas relaxed as Dean audibly relaxed, slipping into a pseudo normal conversation.  
  
“They weren’t terrible, actually. I even looked at some of your final exams. Some girl put a winky face on the corner of hers,” Cas laughed, “does this mean you’re leaving me for a younger model?”  
  
Dean laughed as well, “She’s onto us man, I’m pretty sure she draws fanart of us doing... things.”  
  
“I did not need to know that, Dean.”  
  
He counted Dean’s laughs, noted when he could hear him smile, and held onto those things. It had never even occurred to him to not follow Dean, even if he was running Hell-bent into the mouth of Satan’s pit. It had never occurred to him to be afraid. It had never occurred to him to not want to simply be with Dean, always.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to get myself back in the mood for this fic. I still spend thought-space thinking about where it's going and what I want to do with it, but sitting down to write is proving difficult. Thanks again for sticking around and for your support! I'll be trying to post more regularly as time allows (hopefully at least once every couple of weeks).
> 
> You guys are amazing and I hope you are not in grad school because let's face it, grad school blows.
> 
> <3


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